Imagine · HafenCity University Hamburg · 2024
Under the Urban Testbeds Jr consortium spanning Hamburg, Aarhus and Luleå, facilitator bootcamps plus platform subscriptions put children’s participatory AI into university hands. HafenCity University ran two sessions with school-age children in April and July 2024, reimagining a park-like green space near the campus: greening dominated — urban forests, community gardens, fountains, chess corners — steered by a bilingual German–English prompt-card deck, while a fully open white-canvas round let imaginations drift to jungles and game worlds.
Who took part
School-age children in youth groups of roughly 8–10 per session, with bootcamp-trained HCU facilitators.
What the tool did
Card-guided prompting with likes-based polling of favourites in the April sessions, and 93 fully open white-canvas generations in July — the deck demonstrably steered children toward planning themes where the free canvas let them play.
Delivered together with project partners.
